Tallinn-based startup Ready Player Me has raised $56M in a Series B funding round co-led by Jon Lai from a16z GAMES FUND ONE and Chris Dixon from a16z crypto. The round attracts many other investors including Plural, David Baszucki, co-founder of Roblox, Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch and Fractal, Robin Chan, co-founder of Fractal, Henry Ault, co-founder of Eco, Sebastian Knutsson & Riccardo Zacconi, King Games co-founders, Collab Currency, Endeavor, Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Ventures, D’Amelio family, Punk6529, Snowfro, Nordic Ninja, Konvoy and more.
This latest capital will help them during volatile and unpredictable markets and give them an opportunity to attract new talents. The funding will also enable them to scale their avatar creator, build new tools, improve avatar diversity and include other avatars on the platform to help them travel across virtual worlds.
The team started by building 3D scanning hardware and moved on to building custom avatar systems for companies like Tencent, Huawei, HTC, Wargaming and Verizon. In May 2020, they launched Ready Player Me and have rapidly scaled it to 3,000+ customers across the metaverse.
Ready Player Me is a cross-game avatar platform for the metaverse. It lets users create a 3D avatar with a selfie and use it in 3,000+ compatible apps and games. It also enables them to explore virtual worlds in VRChat, join meetings in MeetinVR, or stream to their fans using LIV – all with their personal avatar that represents them in virtual worlds. Besides the latest round, the startup is also backed by top investors like Taavet Hinrikus (Co-Founder of Wise), Sten Tamkivi (Co-Founder of Teleport), Tom Preston-Werner (Co-Founder of Github), and Samsung Next among many others.